Yesterday I took delivery of this vehicle that I agreed to buy for parts three months ago, paid for 2 months ago, and got asked to move from the PO's front lawn 2 weeks ago.

As usual, there was a bit of a mission involved. General planning happened some weeks ago, a lonely trialmission occurred last weekend when I managed to get it running without much effort, I wrote a detailedlist 5 days ago, and finally yesterday Rob/Corbon and I went with a Stagea load of gear, prepared it, andpicked it up! Huge thanks to Rob for his help! Most appreciated! It was a fun day for me! :-)

Until a week ago, this car hadn't even run in around 1.5 - 2 years, let alone driven. It has a moderate caseof rod knock, and a bad big end bearing. Well, yesterday it was driven about 45 kilometers in about thesame number of minutes without any major dramas.

Peak speed was about 120 on a down hill stretch as a run up for the next up hill stretch. Minimum speedon the motorway was about 80kph at the top of some hills. Cruising RPM was 2500 @ 100kph through to3000 @ 120, a couple of accidental kickdowns resulted in bursts of 3500 and possibly once to 4000, nohigher. Didn't want another messy rod exit on my hand or a chance for the coolaid man to appear.

The engine is obviously knackered, but will probably donate some good parts to other projects in goodtime. The shell isn't really too bad. It is rough, but it's not very rough, and the interior is pretty good.

So I'm putting up this thread to serve several purposes:

1) To document what I want to take from this car and directly fit onto my gold wagon (sooner or later)2) To document what I want to take from this car and store as spares for my gold wagon (for later, just in case)3) To document what would require fixing on this car to get it road legal with a view to a simple and fun repower4) To give you a place to argue your position on what to do with this car, should you so wish.

The context should be obvious but I'll spell it out: I bought this for a parts car, but am now thinking aboutswapping in some other engine and driving it for a while for fun. Volvo 240 cars are fantastic to drive, inall three body shapes, but I feel a bit precious about my gold wagon, so having a 240 that I don't have tocare about would be nice. This cost me 450nzd and replacement cars are available for 1000 to 2000 regularly.

I'll reserve a few posts for the above, but comments are welcome right here in this thread. No decisionsare final. Nothing much is going to happen in any direction for a little while, regardless. It's going to sit outsideand take up space, no matter what. I have other priorities for now, and no funds, nor time.

Live diary notes fresh from IRC just prior to the birth of this thread:

(16:09:09) Fred: took the 244 for 3 more short drives, checked ATF, dry, put 1.5l in, drove, checked again, very low on dipstick, another 1.5l in, drove, overfilled, so it has 0.5 to 1.0ish extra litres in it, probably(16:09:15) Fred: but now it drives fairly normal(16:09:36) Fred: must have been insufficient ATF for the TQ converter to function properly and/or the clutches to get enough pressure behind them(16:09:52) Fred: didn't see any of what i put in leaking out, either(16:09:53) Fred: weird(16:10:05) Fred: brand new full 4.0 of ATF came with the car :-D(16:10:10) Fred: so i guess he knew(16:10:50) Fred: clattery noisy piece of junk, but drives smooth and nice, and even the brakes are doing OK(16:11:33) Fred: other things to take care of right now, but i guess i'll make a list of things to swap onto the gold car and things to fix on the blue car for a WOF and then think about it<snip>(16:18:35) Fred: I'd feel the same taking the 245 or even the sweet 740 to a trackday, too. I'd be scared for it. Different on a track at 150-250 than a carpark with soft cones. In a 244 I'd give zero f***s and push as hard as I could.(16:19:21) Fred: I should get the 23mm sway bar I have for the 740 into it. I knew what a sway bar could do to a car, but I guess I'd forgotten at some level, because suddenly I'm motivated :-)

Found where the ATF makes its final escape. Didn't trace it back to the source, yet, though.

Drove it again today, up the hill and back. Contemplating a different plan of attack...

Put my good bottom end into it, and reuse the head already in it. FreeEMS it. Try mods out on it, instead of molesting the 245. Once mods tested good, swap over to the good car. To that end I did a bit of cleaning on the good bottom end last night and got all the grit out of the top ringlands, now it looks like this:

There's a puddle of ATF under it since yesterday when I moved it into the driveway to get it off the grass. I'll have to figure out where it's coming from (not obvious without cleaning it, I don't think) and if possible stop that. Or put something under there to catch the drips.

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